Microphone barely picking up voice

[Steven Edwards]

I have decided to give voice recognition another shot. Based on reccomendations here, I purchased a Sennheiser headset with a microphone. I plug it in and test it with the Yahoo! Call Setup Assistant (and the Windows Sound Recorder) and it barely picks up my voice.

I have tried moving the microphone closer to my mouth to no avail. I increased the Microphone volume under Sounds and Audio Devices to max, again to no affect.

I will try with a stand alone microphone later today to see if that works better, but... am I missing any settings?

[CapnGimp]

have you tried the +20 db BOOST under the volume control panel for the microphone?
double click the volume icom in your taskbar, go to the advanced tab... or somewhere in there and look for it...Let us know if that works.
Not familiar with the mic or software.

[Steven Edwards]

have you tried the +20 db BOOST under the volume control panel for the microphone?
double click the volume icom in your taskbar, go to the advanced tab... or somewhere in there and look for it...Let us know if that works.
Not familiar with the mic or software. Oh. Well I feel sheepish. :eek2:

I saw that earlier but didn't think it would do anything. Thanks. :)

[bob clark]

Hi Steve,

I assume you got it working. Cool. I was wondering if the particular voice recognition program that you're using has a setup wizard that will fine tune and profile your microphone settings.

WinXP has a Sound Hardware Test Wizard in it. Control Panel/Sounds and Audio Devices/Voice tab/Test Hardware. Or click on the volume button and screw around with the settings there.

In the Play Control Panel (not Recording Control Panel! :) ) you may want to "Mute" the microphone in there if you're getting feedback. I keep mine muted.

They say that a USB headset or mic is better than the 1/8 inch mini-plug into the soundcard but....

You may have a "Speech" icon in the WinXP Control Panel if your voice recognition program uses a Microsoft Speech Engine. You can click on that icon then click on the "Configure Microphone" button to set your mic level. It's important to get your record/mic levels set just right so the voice recognition software can analyze and decipher your voice with the least amount of errors.

I use a free voice recognition program called Shoot 1.6.4 (http://clans.gameclubcentral.com/shoot/) when I flight sim. It works in conjunction with Microsoft's free .NET Framework and SAPI 5.0 voice recognition program. It works surprisingly well even with a unidirectional desk boom mic and screaming Klipsch 5.1 speakers. I have a Sennheiser headset too and it probably works better because it's not picking up sound from loud speakers but I get tired of wearing it. It's too confining and the speakers sound better.

I might reinstall Office XP and try the "voice to text" and "text to voice" programs again.

If you have a front panel soundcard "breakout box" with mic jacks on it I wouldn't suggest using that. Plug your mic directly into the rear soundcard jack.

Let us know how everything works out.